5-^ ANTS. 



fication of the nervous system, which takes place in a butterfly in the 

 transit to its perfect or imago state from the caterpillar, by a novel and 

 striking simile. I K compares the animal to a portable or hand organ, 

 in which, on a cylinder that can be made to revolve, several tunes are 

 noted; turn the cylinder and the tune for which it is set is played; 

 draw it out a notch and it gives a second ; and so you may go on till 

 the whole number of tunes noted on it have had their turn. This, 

 happily enough, represents the change which appears to take place in 

 the vertebral cord and its ganglions on the metamorphoses of the 

 caterpillar into the butterfly, and the sequence of new instincts which 

 result from the change. But if we extend the comparison, we may 

 illustrate it by the two spheres of organized beings that we find on 

 our globe, and their several instinctive changes and operations. We 

 may suppose each kingdom of nature to be represented by a separate 

 cylinder, having noted upon it as many tunes as there are species differ- 

 ing in their respective instincts for plants may be regarded, in some 

 sense, as having their instincts as well as animals and that the con- 

 stant impulse of an invisible agent causes each cylinder to play in a 

 certain order all the tunes noted upon it ; this will represent, not inaptly, 

 what takes place with regard to the development of instincts in the 

 vegetable and animal kingdoms, and our simile will terminate in the 

 inquiry, whose may be that invisible hand that thus shakes the sistrum 

 of Isis, and produces that universal harmony of action, resulting from 

 that due intermixture of concords and discords, according to the will 

 of its Almighty Author, in that infinitely diversified and ever-moving 

 sphere of beings we call nature." Kirby concludes that the powers 

 which turn the hand organ of instinct are " the physical Cherubim of 

 the Holy Scriptures, or the heavens in action, which under God govern 

 the universe." 



This specimen, extracted from the theological dust-bin, derives its 

 interest from the fact that it is a caricature of views that are still held 

 on the subject of instinct. It is, in fact, more like the scholastic con- 

 ception of instinct than would appear at first sight. Considering for 

 the present only the objective, or hand organ, portion of the above 

 simile, and neglecting the " physical Cherubim," who keep turning the 

 handle, we see that the peculiarity of instinct the combination of 

 complexity with automatic or mechanical fixity that impressed earlier 

 thinkers is the one that still arrests our attention. Indeed, this pecu- 

 liarity is responsible both for the : ' lapsed intelligence " and the 

 " reflex " hypotheses of instinct. The former of these seems to be 

 moribund, the latter, according to which instincts are merely chain 

 reflexes (" Kettenreflexe "), still flourishes, at least, in our biological 



